Peter Wilson BA (Liverpool), PhD (Cambridge), FRHistS, joined the University of Hull as GF Grant Professor of History in 2007, having worked previously at the Universities of Newcastle and Sunderland. He is Director of Research and Deputy Head of Department. His recent books include 'Europe's Tragedy: A history of the Thirty Years War' (Penguin, 2009; published by Harvard as 'The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy'); 'From Reich to Revolution: German History 1558-1806 (Palgrave, 2004); 'Absolutism in Central Europe' (Routledge, 2000), and (as editor)'The Blackwell Companion to Eighteenth Century Europe' (Blackwell, 2008); 'War in European History 1815-1914' (Ashgate 2006); '1848: Year of Revolutions' (Ashgate, 2006); and (with Alan Forrest), 'The Bee and the Eagle: Napoleonic France and the End of the Holy Roman Empire, 1806' (Palgrave, 2009). He is currently writing a history of the Holy Roman Empire 800-1806 for Penguin.